The national shoreline of the United States is 32,344 miles long, excluding Alaska and Hawaii. See the National Shoreline Study, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 1971. Although sixty percent of the shoreline may have been undeveloped in 1971, 40% had been classified as either devoted to public recreation, private recreation or non-recreational developed. Thirty percent or about 10,983 miles of the shoreline meets the criteria of a beach where, according to the Army Corps of Engineers, a beach is defined as the area with sand between high and low tide. Of course, the 10,983 miles of beach shoreline does not include the numerous beaches found adjacent to inland lakes and rivers such as the Great Lakes or Mississippi River.
Beaches exist in a variety of types. For example, open beaches with widths of over one hundred yards may run for over a mile. Smaller beaches, especially around retirement communities, may be secluded and dotted with palm trees. Some beaches are soft, others are hard. Some beaches include coral sand, others comprise volcanic or glacial sand.
The cleaning of beaches is a slow and difficult task, whether accomplished by hand or machine. When a beach is hand-cleaned, only the larger, visible items such as pop and beer cans are found. Smaller items such as nails or hairpins remain dangerously hidden in the sand. Manually labor is typically employed to clean the private secluded beaches because the large, complex beach cleaning machines are prohibitively expensive. Moreover, the massive beach cleaning machines are difficult to maneuver where beach areas include obstructions such as trees, boulders and docks.